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Planar honeycomb structures, especially biomimetic hexagonal honeycombs, are widely used in energy-absorbing equipment because of their excellent out-of-plane deformation resistance. However, their significant mechanical anisotropy, manifested by the large discrepancy between out-of-plane and in-plane responses, greatly restricts their broader applications. Inspired by spiral-reinforced thin-walled biological tubular systems, such as animal tracheae and plant vessels, this study proposes a biomimetic reinforcement strategy by embedding spiral structures along the thin walls of planar honeycombs. To validate the feasibility of the proposed design, biomimetic honeycomb specimens were fabricated using 3D-printing technology and tested under compression along different loading directions. Furthermore, a numerical model validated against the experiments was developed to reveal the underlying enhancement mechanism. The results demonstrate that the proposed biomimetic honeycomb preserves the favorable out-of-plane performance of the conventional hexagonal honeycomb, while improving the in-plane energy absorption capacity by up to 70%. The biomimetic spiral reinforcements enable more effective load transfer under multidirectional loading, resulting in a more uniform plastic stress distribution over the entire structure and activating a larger deformation region for energy dissipation. The present work provides a bioinspired strategy for developing lightweight energy-absorbing structures for potential applications in aerospace, rail vehicles, marine engineering, and civil structures. Full article

In the Vaibhāṣika system, possession (prāpti), classified as a factor that is neither material nor mental, is posited as a real entity that links the various dharmas associated with a sentient being to its individual continuum. In this context, possession does not refer to legal ownership or supernatural possession; rather, it refers to the attainment or endowment of dharmas, that is, how particular qualities, actions, or mental states come to be present in a given individual. This paper examines the strategies by which Vaibhāṣikas defend the ontological status of possession, thereby shedding light on the motivations underlying this doctrinal commitment. Through close philological and historical analysis of a wide range of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma sources, including passages from a newly available manuscript folio of the Abhidharmadīpa with Vibhāṣāprabhāvṛtti, this study reconstructs the diachronic development of Vaibhāṣika arguments for the real existence of possession. Vaibhāṣikas consistently employ two principal modes of justification: appeals to scriptural authority (āgama) and logical reasoning (yukti). As the tradition develops, their defenses of possession shift from reliance on scriptural sources toward increasingly sophisticated forms of doctrinal and functional integration. Possession thus evolves from a dharma serving to clarify specific doctrinal difficulties into a structurally embedded component of Vaibhāṣika doctrinal architecture, playing an important role in its accounts of soteriology, causality, and karma. Full article

Background: Depression is highly prevalent among individuals with chronic pain and strongly impacts pain intensity, psychological functioning, and health-related quality of life. Self-efficacy has emerged as a potentially modifiable resilience factor within this interplay, yet large-scale real-world evidence integrating self-efficacy into multidimensional pain–depression models remains limited. Methods: This cross-sectional registry-based analysis evaluated standardized patient-reported measures from chronic pain patients enrolled in the German Pain e-Registry. All variables were directionally harmonized and transformed into standardized deviation scores (hSDSs) relative to patients without depression. Group-level hSDS profiles for five DASS-21 depression severity strata (none, mild, moderate, severe, extreme) were compared across pain intensity, disability, psychological well-being, affective pain processing, quality of life, neuropathic pain features, and pain-related self-efficacy (PSEQ). Correlations and exploratory principal component analysis (PCA) were used to assess multivariate structure. PCA-informed path models were estimated to evaluate directional relationships between pain, function, depression, and self-efficacy. All directional and mediation models represent exploratory, theory-informed statistical frameworks and do not imply causal or mechanistic relationships. Results: Across all domains, hSDS values increased monotonically with depression severity, while self-efficacy showed the strongest inverse gradient. Exploratory PCA revealed a dominant severity component explaining most variance and a secondary affective–self-efficacy axis, supporting the conceptual separation between functional–physical and psychological–affective symptom clusters. In the bottom-up path model (pain → function → self-efficacy → depression), self-efficacy showed the largest indirect statistical contribution within the proposed path models, and the model explained 55% of depression variance (R² = 0.55). In the top-down model (depression → affective pain → self-efficacy → pain), 45% of pain intensity variance was explained (R² = 0.45), again with self-efficacy as a central mediating construct. Associations remained robust after adjustment for age, sex, and BMI, as well as during sensitivity analyses. Conclusions: This large real-world cohort demonstrates a highly coherent pattern of associations across biopsychosocial domains and highlights pain-related self-efficacy as a central statistical construct linking pain, functional impairment, and depressive symptom burden within the applied exploratory models. The findings suggest that self-efficacy occupies a key position in the interplay between pain and mood, and that pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments traditionally used in chronic pain management may be associated with changes in this construct. Importantly, all directional and mediation analyses are exploratory and do not imply causal or mechanistic relationships. Therapeutic strategies aimed at enhancing self-efficacy may therefore represent promising targets for future research within multimodal pain management frameworks. Full article

This article presents a comparative analysis of the negated antithesis (ṭibāq salb) in pre-Islamic poetry and the Qurʾān using data generated by the Rhetorical Element Identifier (REI), a computational tool capable of automatically detecting this device across both corpora. Drawing on a dataset of 1908 pre-Islamic poems and the full Qurʾānic text, the study explores how shared rhetorical patterns reflect a broader stylistic continuum between the two earliest Arabic literary traditions. While the Qurʾān employs structures attested in the poetic corpus, it frequently reconfigures them—shifting antithetical elements from verse-final to mid-verse positions, creating new syntactic configurations, and deploying the device for didactic and theological aims. The analysis also identifies thirty-three shared verbal roots that appear in comparable grammatical settings across both corpora, underscoring a common semantic foundation. By isolating a single rhetorical feature, the study highlights how the Qurʾān both inherits and reshapes earlier poetic strategies, offering fresh insight into the evolution of early Arabic rhetoric. Full article

Nature-based solutions (NbSs) are increasingly recognized as sustainable and cost-effective strategies for mitigating drought impacts. However, robust quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of NbSs for drought mitigation, especially under future climate change scenarios, remains limited. In particular, the extent to which grazing management can reduce agricultural and hydrological droughts over long time horizons is still poorly understood. This study examines the long-term effectiveness of grazing management as a NbS for mitigating drought under historical and future climate conditions in the Ganale Dawa River Basin, Ethiopia. We combined remote sensing, machine learning, and climate projections to simulate soil moisture and runoff using a long short-term memory (LSTM) model. Protected areas were used as proxies for light grazing, while adjacent non-protected areas represented heavy grazing. Agricultural and hydrological droughts were quantified using the standardized soil moisture index (SSMI) and standardized runoff index (SRI), respectively. The results show that light grazing consistently reduced drought severity compared to heavy grazing across all periods. Agricultural drought severity was reduced by up to ~15% under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, while hydrological drought severity showed substantially larger reductions, exceeding ~40% in mid- and late-future periods. Differences between grazing regimes widened under stronger climate forcing, indicating that grazing management benefits become more pronounced under future climate stress. These findings demonstrate that grazing management is an effective NbS for enhancing long-term drought resilience. Scaling up sustainable grazing practices could, therefore, serve as a practical climate adaptation strategy for drought-prone basins in Ethiopia and similar regions. Full article

The increasing demand for advanced diagnostic technologies has positioned biosensor platforms as powerful alternatives to conventional analytical methods. Among them, lateral flow platforms (LFPs) are widely used for their speed, simplicity, and low cost. However, their limited sensitivity and lack of quantitative precision have spurred the development of enhanced systems incorporating electrochemical detection. Electrochemical biosensors offer significant advantages, including high sensitivity, excellent selectivity, and ease of miniaturization, which make them especially suitable for point-of-care testing (POCT). To address the limitations of traditional colorimetric LFPs, several strategies have been employed, such as the incorporation of nanomaterials, enzymatic amplification, and signal-enhancing labels. A particularly promising innovation is the direct integration of electrodes into LFPs, enabling real-time electrochemical readouts and enhanced analytical accuracy. Despite their potential, challenges persist, including manufacturing complexity, a lack of standardized protocols, and difficulties in scaling production for widespread adoption. Continued progress in developing hybrid platforms that combine lateral flow technology with electrochemical detection is crucial for expanding diagnostic applications in healthcare, environmental monitoring, and food safety. This work explores recent advances in electrochemical LFPs, reviewing current methodologies while discussing their advantages, limitations, and the future directions necessary to facilitate broader implementation and improve global diagnostic accessibility. Full article

Myofibrillar protein microgel particles (MMP) are promising Pickering stabilisers due to their structure and delivery potential. However, their fibrous, irregular shape promotes aggregation, limiting practical use. This study investigated the effect of xanthan gum (XG) concentration (0.025–0.4%) on MMP dispersion in water and its role in stabilising Pickering emulsions. FTIR and interaction analysis revealed that hydrophobic interactions dominate between XG and MMP, followed by hydrogen bonding and electrostatic forces. At higher XG concentrations (0.2–0.4%), complex particle size decreased from 5.21 μm to 4.49 μm, the contact angle increased from 57.67° to 77.33°, and a uniform dispersed state was achieved. Although increasing XG gradually reduced the emulsifying activity of MMP, it significantly improved the emulsion stability. Microstructure analysis showed that at low XG concentrations, emulsions exhibited phase separation. Rheological measurements indicated that XG-MMP complexes increased continuous-phase viscosity and shear resistance, enhancing macroscopic stability. In summary, at a critical XG concentration of 0.2%, the emulsion undergoes a transition from aggregation-driven instability to network-mediated stabilisation, achieved through the interfacial layer with spatial confinement by a weak aqueous-phase network. This work provides a theoretical foundation and a practical design strategy for fabricating highly stable, tuneable Pickering emulsions based on protein microgel particles. Full article

Background: Effective and safe sedation is essential in pediatric dental practice to manage anxiety, pain, and cooperation during procedures. Objective: This exploratory systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesize available RCT evidence comparing dexmedetomidine and ketamine across different sedation strategies (premedication and procedural sedation) in children undergoing dental procedures. Methods: This study was conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement. A comprehensive literature search was performed across PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect for studies between 1990 and 2026. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. The primary outcomes assessed were intraoperative and postoperative analgesia, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), oxygen saturation (SpO₂), and recovery time. A meta-analysis of the extracted data was performed, and the risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool 2. Results: The review included four RCTs involving 178 children, with a mean age of 6.5–9.1 years. Intraoperative and postoperative analgesia did not differ significantly between groups (p = 0.09 and p = 0.08, respectively). Pooled analysis showed numerically lower heart rates with dexmedetomidine compared to ketamine, but the difference was not statistically significant (MD = −11.70; 95% CI: −29.27 to 5.86; p = 0.07). Systolic blood pressure was significantly lower with dexmedetomidine (MD = −6.69; 95% CI: −6.91 to −6.47; p = 0.002). Oxygen saturation did not differ significantly between groups (p = 0.35). Two studies were rated as having a low risk of bias. The remaining two had some concerns, related to unverified blinding and lack of outcome pre-specification. Conclusions: Based on limited and clinically heterogeneous evidence, both dexmedetomidine and ketamine appear to be viable options for sedation in pediatric dental settings, though no firm superiority conclusion can be drawn. Further randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes and standardized sedation protocols are recommended to strengthen these findings and inform practice guidelines. Full article

Conventional spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) based optical property inversion is inefficient, while deep learning methods suffer from heavy reliance on large-scale real datasets. To address this contradiction, a simulation-driven approach for subsurface fruit bruise discrimination was proposed. An SFDI simulation environment was built with Blender to generate 800 paired datasets of diffuse reflectance images and optical transport coefficients, overcoming the high cost and long cycle of real dataset acquisition. We designed the CBAM-GAN-U-Net model and adopted surface profile correction in the prediction method to eliminate curved surface-induced non-planar distortion, with the whole method validated on liquid phantoms, green apples and crown pears. This prediction method achieved high accuracy in predicting the reduced scattering coefficient μ_s′, with NMAE of 0.021 ± 0.007 (phantoms), 0.039 ± 0.012 (severely bruised green apples) and 0.044 ± 0.015 (severely bruised crown pears), outperforming U-Net and GANPOP. Based on the predicted μ_s′, a discrimination strategy combining coefficient of variation, mean ratio and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was adopted, attaining 100% accuracy for non-bruised/bruised fruit discrimination, with misclassification rates of 6% (green apples) and 8% (crown pears) for mild/severe bruise differentiation. This method enables accurate subsurface fruit bruise detection, providing a reliable technical solution for the fruit and vegetable industry and helping reduce postharvest supply chain losses. Full article

The assessment of histopathological features has evolved considerably, transitioning from traditional manual measurements to more sophisticated, technology-assisted approaches. Classical histological evaluation, while foundational and highly reliable, is inherently labor-intensive and subject to inter-observer variability. With the advent of digital pathology, these practices have been progressively enhanced by image processing software, which offers capabilities such as segmentation, feature extraction, and data visualization. However, despite their promise, the integration of machine learning into this branch of pathology faces notable challenges, such as the need for large, high-quality annotated datasets and the integration into existing workflows, which remain significant hurdles. Looking forward, the role of specialists in histological evaluation remains crucial in this evolving landscape. While automation streamlines routine tasks, the expertise of pathologists is indispensable in validating results and interpreting findings in scientific contexts. This comprehensive review explores the trajectory of histological evaluation methods, from manual and classical strategies to cutting-edge digital tools, highlighting the benefits, limitations, and implications of each approach in contemporary practice. Full article

This study examines the role of religious–moral values in supporting the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) within the broader framework of inclusive education. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, the research combines a qualitative phase based on semi-structured interviews with special education teachers (N = 9 participants) and a quantitative phase involving a questionnaire administered to a larger sample (N = 324 respondents). The qualitative findings indicate that teachers associate religious–moral values with the development of socio-emotional competencies, such as empathy, respect, solidarity, and a sense of belonging, which are considered essential for inclusion. The quantitative results support these perspectives, showing high levels of agreement regarding the contribution of these values to fostering positive attitudes, social acceptance, and the classroom integration of students with SEN. The findings also suggest that teachers attribute greater importance to core values than to formal religious instruction and prefer adaptive, student-centered strategies, including narrative and experiential approaches. Overall, the study highlights the potential of religious–moral values as a resource for inclusive education when applied in a flexible, interdisciplinary, and context-sensitive manner. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions on the role of religion in education, particularly in relation to inclusion, equality, and respect for diversity. Full article

Background: n-3 Docosapentaenoic acid (DPA; 22:5 n-3) is increasingly viewed as a distinct long-chain omega-3 fatty acid with biological activities that are not fully captured by eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). However, progress remains limited by restricted access to high-purity DPA: most commercial sources contain DPA as a minor component, and published isolation strategies often yield only enriched mixtures or require multi-step workflows that are difficult to scale in standard laboratories. Objectives: We aimed to establish a robust, laboratory-accessible purification workflow to obtain DPA ethyl ester at high purity while preserving oxidative quality. Methods: Candidate lipid sources were screened to select an optimal DPA-containing feedstock. Oils were stabilized with antioxidants and pre-fractionated by cold crystallization (−20 °C) to reduce saturated lipids and oxidation by-products. Preparative separation used a stacked C18 flash system (15 μm + 45 μm in series) operated isocratically (methanol/water 92:8, v/v) at 120 mL/min. Fractions were analyzed by GC and iteratively reinjected to progressively enrich the DPA window. Solvent was recovered by distillation and reused. Results: Omegavie^® 4020EE (5.4% n-3 DPA) was identified as the best starting material. Pretreatment eliminated detectable TBARS-derived malondialdehyde. The isocratic purification-loop strategy produced tens of grams of DPA ethyl ester at >98% purity (GC–FID) defined as n-3 DPA area% of total identified fatty acid methyl esters by GC–FID, with per-cycle DPA recovery of 91–95%, overall recovery of 76% from the starting DPA content, and >90% solvent recycling. The workflow is scalable at the gram-to-tens-of-grams level for research laboratories, although solvent burden and column maintenance remain practical constraints for larger-scale implementation. Identity and purity were confirmed by GC–MS and ^1H NMR, and oxidation indices remained low (peroxide value < 0.2 meq/kg; p-anisidine < 3). Conclusions: This scalable, solvent-conscious protocol enables reliable access to high-purity DPA and should be adaptable to other low-abundance polyunsaturated fatty acids. Full article